VICTORINUS, GAIUS MARIUS (4th century A.D.)

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 47 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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VICTORINUS, GAIUS MARIUS (4th century A.D.) , Roman grammarian, rhetorician and neo-Platonic philosopher, an African by

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

(whence his surname Afer), lived during the reign of Constantius II. He taught rhetoric at Rome (one of his pupils being Jerome), and in his old age became a convert to Christianity. His conversion is said to have greatly influenced that of Augustine. When Julian published an edict forbidding Christians to lecture on polite literature, Victorinus closed his school. A statue was erected in his honour as a teacher in the Forum Trajanum.
His translations of platonic writers are lost, but the treatise De Definitionibus (ed. T. Stangl in Tulliana et Mario-Victoriniana, Munich, 1888) is probably by him and not by Boetius, to whom it was formerly attributed. His

manual

MANUAL

of prosody, in four books, taken almost literally from the work of Aphthonius, is extant (H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, vi.). It is doubtful whether he is the author of certain other extant treatises attributed to him on metrical and grammatical subjects, which will be found in Keil. His commentary on Cicero's De Inventione (in Halm's Rhetores Latini Minores, 1863) is very diffuse, and is itself in need of commentary. His extant theological writings, which will be found in J. P. Migne, Cursus Patrologiae Latinae, viii., include commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians; De Trinitate contra Arium; Ad Justinum Manichaeum de Vera Came Christi; and a little tract on " The Evening and the Morning were one day " (the genuineness of the last two is doubtful). Some Christian poems under the name of Victorinus are probably not his.
See G. Geiger, C. Marius Victorinus Afer, ein neuplatonischer Philosoph (Metten, 1888) ; G. Koffmann, De Mario Victorino philosopho Christiano (Breslau, i88o) ; R. Schmid, Marius Victorinus Rhetor and seine Beziehungen zu Augustin (Kiel, 1895) ; Gore in Dictionary of Christian Biography, iv.; M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, iv. I (1904) ; Teuffel, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. tr., 1900), 408.

VICTOR

-PERRIN, CLAUDE, DUKE of BELLUNO (1764-1841), marshal of France, was born at La

Marche

MARCHE
MARCHE, or LA MARCHE

(Vosges) on the 7th of December 1764. In 1781 he entered the army as a private soldier, and after ten years' service he received his discharge and settled at Valence. Soon afterwards he joined the local volunteers, and distinguishing himself in the war on the Alpine frontier, in less than a year he had risen to the
command of a battalion. For his bravery at the siege of Toulon in 1993 he was raised to the rank of general of brigade. He afterwards served for some time with the army of the Eastern Pyrenees, and in the Italian campaign of 199699 he so acquitted himself at Mondovi, Roveredo and Mantua that he, was promoted to be general of division. After commanding for some time the forces in the department of La Vendee, he was again employed in Italy, where he did good service against the papal troops, and he took a very important part in the battle of Marengo. In 1802 he was

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of the colony of Louisiana for a short time, in 1803 he commanded the Batavian army, and afterwards he acted for eighteen months (18056) as French plenipotentiary at Copenhagen. On the outbreak of hostilities with Prussia he joined the V. army corps (Marshal

Lannes

LANNES, JEAN

) as

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the general staff. He distinguished himself at Saalfeld and Jena, and at Friedland he commanded the I. corps in such a manner that Napoleon gave him the marshal-ate. After the peace of Tilsit he became

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of Berlin, and in 1808 he was created duke of Belluno. In the same year he was sent to Spain, where he took a prominent part in the Peninsular War (especially at Espinosa, Talavera, Barrosa and Cadiz), until his appointment in 1812 to a corps command in the invasion of Russia. Here his most important service was in protecting the retreating army at the crossing of the Beresina. He took an active part in the wars of 181314, till in February of the latter year he had the misfortune to arrive too

late

LATE

at Montereau-sur-

Yonne

YONNE

. The result was a scene of violent recrimination and his supersession by the emperor, who transferred his command to Gerard. Thus wounded in his amour-propre,

Victor

now transferred his allegiance to the Bourbon dynasty, and in December 1814 received from Louis XVIII. the command of the second military division. In 1815 he accompanied the king to

Ghent

GHENT (Flem. Gent, Fr. Gand)

, and on the second restoration he was made a peer of France. He was also president of a commission which inquired into the conduct of the officers during the Hundred Days, and dismissed Napoleon's sympathizers. In 1821 he was appointed war minister and held this office for two years. In 1830 he was major-general of the royal guard, and after the revolution of that year he retired altogether into private life. His death took place at Paris on the 1st of March 1841.
His papers for the period 17931800 have been published (Paris, 1846).

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